Help with Rise of Rome Scenario

I have now tried two different times to play the Rise of Rome scenario from C3C, each time losing big to the Persians. Why do they start with a +1000 point lead? Anyhow, I have tried "conquest" and "culture", neither of which had me reach the goals by the end of 130 turns. Anyone have that scenario fresh in their minds, who played as the Romans, that can give me a couple of pointers? I think that it is pretty impossible to reach the goals (50% population AND 30% territory) in the turn limit, leaving only score as the "tiebreaker". If I try to expand my civ that fast, I am left too thin. Now I do spend a lot of time on tile improvements (roads everywhere, a mine or irrigation wherever possible). perhaps for this scenario that is a bad idea given the time crunch? Any ideas?

PS. A total of 42 hours "wasted" on the two previous attempts. I say wasted but it was fun, just tiring, if you know what I mean!

I had the same problem at first. It's probably my favorite scenario, but it's hard to beat as the Romans. It requires a different perspective than most Civ games. Normally when I play, I keep thinking "open space....must build cities." But there's so much corruption that it's just not worth it to expand much beyond northern Italy.

Here's the main thing to remember: your Legions are the best units in the game, especially at the start. Use your cities to churn them out, and beat up on whichever civ is closest to you.

Take Masillia (Marseille) from the celts early. Build a city in northern italy, where Milan is, I think. Those two will help a great deal.

Carthage can be distracted as long as you hold a city in Sicily. They might bother you elsewhere, but the bulk of their forces will always be in Sicily if you have a city. However, it is very difficult to capture northern Africa. I've never done more than hold onto a few cities there. Be careful of their army, though.

Spain seems like a good place to expand, but it's not. Too far away so the corruption is crippling. The Carthaginian cities there can be captured and held fairly easily, though.

Your main focus should be Greece. You want to beat Persia to Athens. Baby steps initially, but towards the end, the Greeks will simply break, and if you can pick up the pieces, you'll win on score. Be patient, though. I only passed the Persians with two or three turns left, but I knew it would happen.

Thanks for the tips, Arkaeyn! I am glad that I am not the only one who thought this was a tough scenario. It is difficult to expand as much as one would think, given the scenario goals. I hadn't tried taking out Macedonia, as I figured they were helping keep Persia in check, but since the Macedonians never hang on and always give way to Persia, perhaps that is what I will do. Thanks again, and happy civing!

I completed it by attacking cathage, taking over the sciliy,corsica and sardinia. I also expanded up around the top of italy by building new cities in switzerland and around yugoslavia. I then landed troops at the eastern end of the carthage empire and moved them westward taking cities as i went. i combined this with an attack on the celts and pushed them off mainland europe so they only had two cities left in england. my attack on the celts curved down south through spain and joined up with my attack on carthage. after taking destroying carthage and effectively destroying the celts Greece attacked me so I took them out and conqured mainland greece (the persians took over the greek cities in asia minor. Although corruption was a big factor in my cities in spain and france I didnt really use them to build very much as my troops were produced in and around italy.
I was playing it on an embarrasing low difficulty level though - warlord.

I take it that you won by score, and not by meeting the territory and population victory conditions? Warlord or not, winning with the Romans isn't that easy. If you play Persia, you already start with a huge point advantage and don't really have much pressure, only from Macedonia as you're somewhat separated from Carthage, Celts, and Goth. In my games, the Persians take Egypt fairly early. Good job, and thanks for the recap.

I have won RoR only once and it was with the macedonians (domination win).
As Romans I have tried tried to win many times but Persia allways wins by score.
It's indeed hard even though Rome has legions, super settlers and small tech lead at start.
Some tips (for Romans):
-Persia is your real enemy (or Macedonia if they somehow manage to conquest the Persians).
-Conquer Sicily ASAP
-After that capture Sardinia and Corsica
-Celtic town Massilia is also useful to hold
-When you got enough troops land next to the Carthage and capture it
-After that starts slow and painful conquest of North Africa and after that capture Spain if you haven't yet conquered it

I've won by domination as the Romans. The key wonder to get is Temple of Artemis to expand your cultural boundaries. To get enough land you need to focus on the barbarians, the Celts and Goths. They are very weak defensively. The Celts only have a d=2 unit as their best while the Goths only have a d=1 unit! Easy pickings for Rome's powerful legions. To the north of Macedonia is more unclaimed very fertile land and a lux too.

There is a settler pump in the northeast of Italy that you can get going fairly easily. Just keep cranking out those ultra fast citizen units.

As to Carthage, you mostly want to ignore them after an initial thrust to take Sciliy, Corsica and Sardinia. One of them has a lux. Fortify the heck out of these islands because Carthage will continually land troops there. The good news is that they ignore the rest of Italy. Although they will become your punching bag later, try to get the Celts to attack Carthage early in the game. Carthage has some cities in southern Spain and it is a nuisance to have elephants sneaking into Italy over the alps.

Kiss the Persian's butts. You don't want to fight them, at least not until the end. The immortal is no match for the legion but they're so darned cheap that the Persians can produce scores of them. End any war with them asap.

Same with the Macedonians. Yes, they're wimps but why help take away Persia's punching bag? Worse, they are close enough to land troops in some very vulnerable spots.

The Egyptians? Too far away. They're just cannon fodder for Carthage or Persia.

The main strategy is to avoid fighting the "civilized" civs and focus on the barbarian civs. Any time you have to fight someone else, you are diverting resources away from your goal. And to spell it out precisely, the goal is to settle/conquer all of western Europe and win by domination. Leave the east to the Persians and Africa to Carthage.

I've done it 2 ways but I always eliminate Carthage

1) go for Sicily, reinforce, go west and take on the Celts whilst sending troops down into Southern Spain to take out the Carthage cities there, once completed hopefully you will have a couple of armies to cross over at the Strait of Gibraltar and take on Carthage from there, ToA is, as gunkulator says, very helpful and 'almost' a necessity, but I've done it without

2)go for the kill, take Sicily, very carefully land your army right next to Carthage and very carefully drop more troops, which are then protected by the army, and go right for the heart, you will lose some galleys, make sure you've moved them efficiently and unloaded them, again you'll still need the Celt territory to get to 20%

in both cases I've ignored the Persians and only hit Macedonia if the Persians have weakened them greatly

also if you get the territory but not the pop, join all the workers at the end

also if you expand eastwards there is a lux in the fog to the North of Macedonia

Thanks for the tips. I was surprised to hear that a couple of you had met the victory conditions straight out. You are better players than I, that is for sure. I just wish there were some way to know earlier on whether or not I have a chance. In my last game I had settled all of Northern Italy, filled in to the Northeast (Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, etc.) of what was Macedonian territory (and even a few of their sites that were destroyed by the Persians but still improved for my usage) where you guys are mentioning the silks lux, the two islands west of Italy (Corsica and Sardinia), and nearly all of Spain and Portugal, and I still lost to the Persians by just over 1000 points. This was after 22 hours! I had figured that I was getting closer, but the last 25 turns really didn't get me any closer. I will try next time to go North and take out the Celts and the Goths, after taking Corsica and Sardinia, and perhaps Sicily as well. Late in the game I was hounded slightly by the Celts-pre treaty-and their hordes of celtic swordsman, but the do seem week defensively.

Take the other two cities in Sicily.
Build a few trebuchets and then weaken any Carthaginian galley that turns up before sinking it. Your galleys soon become veteran and elite and the sinking becomes easier. This bleeds them dry as they only seem to send 4 galleys at a time with 4 units in total in them.
In the meantime attack the weak Celts and expand, expand, expand.
Go both into France and as you get stronger into Spain.
When you finally attack Carthage proper from Spain and Sicily, you'll have some armies by now, they just crumble and you'll easily get whatever % of population and land needed to win the game.

I was able to get domination on deity with a few turns to spare. I used my starting forces to take the islands, and then I ALLIED with Celts against Carthage. So walking down to their cities in Spain was no problem and I kicked them off my end of the continent.

With Carthage bottled up, I settled everything from Spain to eastern Europe. I dropped a city next to every food bonus and irrigated everywhere to get my population up. I didn't get the temple of artemis, but I did get the great library so I had lots of money to rush temples. These cities were totally undefended because I had my good buddies the Celts watching my back, ready to be sicced on any barbarians who gave me trouble ( and they did save my cities from the Goths ).

With no real threat, my army had been steadily growing, so I invaded Carthage. Legionaries with fire catapults are pretty close to unkillable, and when you get an army or two, nothing will stop you. I was chasing down the remnants of Carthage in Egypt, and conquering Greece when I got domination.

nullspace said:

I was able to get domination on deity with a few turns to spare. I used my starting forces to take the islands, and then I ALLIED with Celts against Carthage. So walking down to their cities in Spain was no problem and I kicked them off my end of the continent.

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How big did Persia get? I hear they get pretty powerful on the higher levels

I didn't win this game but what i did was take control of all the island cities and setup the northern city to build my navy so i could destroy the any enemy galleys. then i went and brought my army along with 4 legionaries and landed them near carthage. i captured carthage and held it. i kept on bringing in 4 legionaries per turn steadly increasing my forces to the point they were numerous legionaries deployed in the Carthigian territory. using my army and 8 legionaries i took a path south and conquered all the cities on the coast and in the area. then sent my army back to the north and began my city by city conquest and by the time i got to he tip of North Africa i had two galleys ready to ferry my legionaries to Spain. i landed and took the three cities. from this move i was able to conquer Carthage but it was done too long so i suggest you should do it fast. by this time i was trailing Persia still by one hundered points so i decided i would take Macedonia. huge mistake. i created an army of legionaries marched into Macedonia and city by city fell until i came to athens. i conquered that with ease. but off the coast i was doing great i pretty much sinked the macedonias western fleet of galleys puting their navy in bad shape. i then landed a force to conquer the Spartan island which i successfully did. but i had stretched my forces to much. soon heavy calavry ran me over and took back many cities. if quickly collapsed and saw that i had made a mistake in invading macedonia and should have invaded Persia becuase i was quickly much more industrially powerful than them and would have brought their army to my mercy with the help of macedonia. oh well but don't use this strategy to win because you won't have enough time

So it seems the key is to wipe out the Carthaginians and then fill up Spain/Northern Europe. Roger that. I did notice that the Macedonians never attack (southern) Italy proper, but in my last regent game they sent troops overland from Spain. I will jump on them next time and have them beg for clemency, which of course they will not get!

I am currently playing that conquest right now. I just make Italy a unit machine. A couple torwrds the top making citizens, the rest making legions. Sicily produces galleys. Citizens start occuping eastern europe, legions have taken carthage and egypt. currently gearing up to invade the greeks. My score is close to the persians, population is 46% and land area is 14%. It will be no problem to over come the persians before I reach 20%.

@JavalTiger, What level are you playing on, and at what game date are you at this position?

AZSportsFan said:

So it seems the key is to wipe out the Carthaginians and then fill up Spain/Northern Europe.

Click to expand...

I usually play on Emperor and have found that it's easy for the Romans from a Military point of view... but I have also discovered that this doesn't mean an easy victory! I have won with the Romans (can't remember by which method) but only after a few tries!!!

I agree with the general attitude of conquering the islands and have a small defensive set of units (w/ offensive units), that will keep the Carthaginians entertained and give a few elite units. Also controlling the Northern part of Spain (where the mountains are) is important to stop those annoying fast elephants reaching Italy.

I think that going into Africa isn't worth while, as it's more time and resources than the value added.

I always have war with the Celts, specially later in the game because those Leg III are unbeatable! I sometimes just send 2 of them north and they (by themselves) destroy a lot of units&cities before being destroyed!

Attacking the macedonians seems good, but the problem is that it could help out the Persians. When I had war against the Persians he sent bundle of units... very rarely sent individual units and sent HUGE armies to fight me! As it was the first game after a patch upgrade, I thought that NOW the AI wouldn't make those stupid military mistakes!

I'll concur with Luthor about not attacking Carthage or Macedonia beyond Carthage's islands and cities in Spain. Why bother when the Celts and Goths are so much easier? Land is land as far as domination goes. Take the easy land. You'll almost certainly be at war with every civ at least once in the game. Except for the Celts and Goths, you want to get out of war asap since you'll have to divert far too many resources to conduct a decent war against the other civs.

i like to conquer sicily, sardinia and corsica. i then move to conquer gaul, then macedon to make the march to persia easier. you can't ignore persia the whole game, they'll get too powerful. It's very hard to get to persia as rome, you've got macedon in the way. even if you sign a right of passage, a city is blocking the isthmus to persia. To go by sea is too difficult, persia has a pretty good fleet. i once tried going through scythia over macedon, by the time i got there the game was almost over.